BBQ Bites: Impress Your Guests at Your Next Party with BBQ Sous Vide Hamburgers

As the end of summer is creeping closer and closer, there is nothing like celebrating the final hurrah with a BBQ party on Labor Day weekend!

We all love a juicy hamburger but slaving over the grill all afternoon cooking for our guests is the last thing we want to do. We are making it super easy for you to prepare and cook hamburgers before your guests arrive and all you have to do is flash grill them when it's time to eat. And the best part is... your guests will rave about them!

You may have heard about about a popular cooking technique called sous vide. Essentially, you vacuum seal your food and then cook it in a temperature controlled water bath. You'll need a sous vide circulator for this recipe. If you don't have one, you can read about the top rated ones here.

Ingredients:

2 lbs Ground Beef

1 Large Egg

Salt 

Pepper

Equipment:

Vacuum Sealer

Vacuum Sealer Bags

Sous Vide Circulator

Grill

Mixing Bowl

Directions:

• Fill sous vide pan or tank with water and set desired temp.

NOTE: Depending on the desired doneness, your temperature will range anywhere from about 127 degrees for rare to 158 degrees for well done. We set ours to 135 for a medium doneness with light pink center.

• Put ground beef in a large mixing bowl
• Add egg to ground beef and mix well using hands

• Portion out the beef into your desired hamburger sizes

• Shape into burgers and add salt, pepper, or any other favorite seasonings.

• Place burgers into vacuum sealer bags.

TIP: You can place burgers into individual pint size bags or you can use larger bags and place multiple in the same bag.

• Using your vacuum sealer, seal all of the bags making sure they have a good seal.

• Once your water has been heated to temperature, drop your vacuum sealed bags into the water and start the timer.

NOTE: The cooking time will vary depending on thickness of burgers can can take anywhere from 20 min (for a 1/2 inch burger to 30-45 minutes for thicker burger. The burgers can stay in the water for up to an hour and still be perfectly cooked.

• The nice thing about sous vide, is that you don't have to babysit them. Sit back and relax while they cook.

• Once the timer goes off, you can remove the bags from the water. 

Notice all the juices still in the bag. That's the beauty of cooking sous vide, the flavors are sealed into the bag.

• Cut open your bags and transfer to a dish.

Although the burgers are completely cooked and are safe to eat, your guests may be a little turned off by the pale brown muddy color and soft texture. Searing your burgers on a hot grill will give color and a crispy texture to the outside.

• Place the burgers on the grill.
• Sear on each side for about 45 seconds.

• Add cheese and cover for another 15-20 seconds. 
• Eat up! Now you and your guests can enjoy perfectly cooked sous vide bbq hamburgers.